Californian casinos

The new Indian wars

A fight is brewing over booming Indian gambling

APART from a few pots and baskets sitting, largely unnoticed, in a corner, there is little distinctively Indian about the Sycuan Casino. The punters are the usual mix of retirees and the statistically inept. The casino has three floors with some 2,300 jangling slot machines, a few card tables and a 1,250-seat bingo hall. That is not quite enough to meet demand, which is why the Sycuan tribe wants to expand. Whether it is allowed to do so will depend on how California's voters feel about the enormous casinos that have sprouted in their midst. It will also be a test of their views of Indians.

Indian tribes are free to run casinos because, as sovereign nations, they are not subject to all state laws. Yet the tribes must agree terms with the state. Last year the Sycuan, together with four other tribes, negotiated agreements with Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, that would allow them greatly to enlarge their casinos in exchange for paying more taxes. A motley crew of gambling opponents, racetrack owners, unions and rival tribes objected. As a result, a judge ruled this week, the agreements must be ratified by the state's voters in February. The television advertising blitz has already begun.

Opponents claim that the new agreements provide an unfair advantage and will allow already large casinos to dominate the market. Al Lundeen of No on the Unfair Gambling Deals (the chief opposition group) points out that an earlier round of agreements imposed a fee for each new slot machine above a certain level. The new deals, on the other hand, impose a percentage tax on the winnings from extra machines. That creates a different incentive. Tribes with the first kind of deal are inclined to grow cautiously, because slot machines that remain idle lose money. Tribes with the second kind of deal can shoehorn in the video-poker terminals and wait for demand to catch up with supply.

The outcome of the vote will not just affect the tribes. Alan Meister, an economist, reckons California's Indian tribes paid $308m directly to state and local coffers last year, with much more expected if the biggest operations are allowed to grow. That will come in handy for balancing the state's perennially shaky budgets. The impact can be even greater locally. In San Diego county, where no fewer than 10 tribes run casinos, they supply much-needed jobs and services. The Sycuan's 25-man fire crew spends much of its time dealing with emergencies outside the tiny reservation.

Mark DiCamillo, a pollster, foresees a brutal fight. At present the agreements are supported by 52% of voters, with 35% opposed. But that is hardly a comfortable lead at this stage in the campaign. Experience suggests it is much easier to turn people against a reform than to rally them behind it. And several polls, including Mr DiCamillo's, find voters evenly divided on whether allowing Indian casinos to grow is a good thing in principle.

To Daniel Tucker, the Sycuan's chairman, the issue turns on politics and history. The tribe's past was grim, even by American Indian standards, so it must be allowed to determine its own future. So far California's voters have treated Indian casinos as a special case, twice approving them while crushing attempts to expand gambling elsewhere. But given the slick money-making operations that have emerged on the reservations, will they do so again?